


What's Left of My Halo's Black

by shetookyourbreathaway



Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: Early Relationship, F/F, but there's a good ending promise!, insecurities and emotional trauma come out, it's very angsty, probably season 3 or 4?, they get in a fight
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-27
Updated: 2020-12-27
Packaged: 2021-03-10 17:09:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,699
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28370670
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shetookyourbreathaway/pseuds/shetookyourbreathaway
Summary: “You deserve better!” Emily shouted in return. “And I keep waiting. I keep waiting for you to figure that out and get tired of me and leave, but you don’t!”
Relationships: Jennifer "JJ" Jareau/Emily Prentiss
Comments: 5
Kudos: 88





	What's Left of My Halo's Black

**Author's Note:**

> This could really take place at any time, but I'm imagining it relatively early in their relationship, potentially late season 3 or season 4?  
> (and yes, I am in therapy, I promise)

The evening had started out so calmly and Emily wasn’t really sure how things had escalated to teary eyes, flushed faces, and raised voices quite so fast. 

Emerging from the shower, Emily had been trying awkwardly  \-  and ultimately in vain  \-  to bandage the deep gash on her lower back that she had managed to obtain during their most recent case. The unsub had gotten the jump on her between the dumpsters behind a nightclub, managing to give her a good slash down her side and back before Morgan was able to cuff him. It hadn’t been deep enough to warrant stitches, and Emily didn’t want JJ to worry, so she simply hadn’t told her. That was, until JJ walked in on Emily twisted into a half-naked pretzel, trying to adhere a clean, dry bandage to the small of her back, her sparkling blue eyes clouding over at the sight.

“Why didn’t you tell me you got hurt?” JJ had asked in a soft voice, heavy with hurt. “I would have come! I could have helped you clean it. I would have driven you-”

“I don’t need you to do that,” Emily had cut JJ off, sounding harsher than she really meant to, but needing the onslaught of care that was causing her insides to shrivel up with guilt to stop. “It’s really no big deal,” Emily had insisted.

“It’s a big deal to me!” JJ had exclaimed, “Why won’t you ever let me help you, Emily? Support you?” JJ had demanded as Emily tugged a shirt on, feeling too exposed having an argument in a half-dressed state. 

“Why won’t you just let me love you?” JJ demanded. At that question, something inside Emily, something that she had been keeping quiet and contained,  _ snapped _ . 

“Honestly?” Emily whirled around, her voice becoming dangerously steady. “Do you really want to know?” She didn’t wait for JJ’s response before continuing. “Because if I let you in, if I  _ let you love me _ , truly… I  _ will _ end up hurting you, JJ. 

“I will lose you, and most of all, I will disappoint you. Do you want me to count the ways?” Emily drew in a fiery breath before continuing to speak, calmly and surely, but feeling like she was vomiting fire and darkness onto the person she loved most in this world. 

“I’m honestly… I’m so hard to love. I don’t know  _ how _ you do it,” Emily confessed. “I… let’s see, I started smoking when I was 15 because I wanted to fit in and look cool and feel nothing, and then I  _ kept  _ doing it, because as backward as it sounds, it made me feel like I could  _ breathe _ for once in my life! And, sometimes, I  _ still _ do it, no matter how bad I know it is for me, because there’s a reckless part of me that doesn’t  _ care _ about dying young. 

“Basically every night I’m not working or with you, I drink too much because it makes the world warm and slightly out of focus and everything doesn’t hurt quite so much. And I know that’s bad! I  _ know _ it is, but I keep doing it!

“I kept sleeping with men  _ long _ after I knew I wasn’t attracted to them, let them bend me over and take whatever they wanted from me, and I made  _ all _ the right noises,  _ just _ because it felt good to have a warm body on top of me, to be  _ wanted _ in the here and now! I’ve cut ties and run away time and time again. There’s a whole slew of wreckage in my wake, JJ.

“I’ve done terrible and hurtful things that I  _ knew _ were probably wrong, and I’ve screwed up, and I’m terrified that, no matter how hard I try to do good in this world, somewhere deep underneath, I’m really just a horrible person.” 

Emily paused to breathe, and JJ opened her mouth, looking ready to refute her.

“No,  _ no _ !” Emily continued desperately on her tirade. “ _ Everyone _ I love, everyone I care about, ends up either leaving or dying \- sometimes both - and it’s probably karma I’ve brought upon myself, but I  _ can’t _ let that happen to you! 

“You’re too good for that, JJ. You’re… God, you’re practically an angel. You light up every room you walk into like a ray of pure sunshine and you make people feel better just being in your presence. I can’t let that happen to you, I can’t let you come to harm because of me, and I can’t lose you, so it’s better to just keep you a safe distance away.”

“You won’t lose me!” JJ raised her voice to catch Emily’s attention. “I’m not going anywhere, Emily. I want to be here with  _ you _ !”

“You deserve better!” Emily shouted in return. “ And I keep  _ waiting _ . I keep waiting for you to figure that out and get tired of me and leave, but you  _ don’t _ !” 

Emily had never raised her voice at JJ before. She watched in terror, the echoes of her voice ringing through the oppressive silence of the room. A whole bevvy of emotional flickered across JJ’s face. There was something akin to pain, looking for a moment like it would lead to tears. Then, it was the deep-rooted anger that Emily often caught just below the surface of her flawless composure. Finally, offense before her features dropped into a blank mask that was somehow more terrifying than all of her other possible responses. 

“And? What makes you think you can decide what’s good for me, Emily?” JJ asked in a dangerously low voice. “And what makes you think that  _ you _ don’t need to be protected from  _ me _ ? That everything around me doesn’t fall apart too? You think I’m some kind of angel? What kind is that? The one with torn wings and torn clothing and a soot-covered face? The one who’s angry and scared and tired  _ all  _ the time?

“God Emily, most days, I’m so angry I don’t know what to do with myself! Because,  _ yes _ , everyone leaves, and everyone dies, and everything falls apart in the end. Don’t you think I’ve learned that by now? What with  _ my  _ family and  _ my  _ life and  _ my _ job? Sometimes, I think I’ve spent my whole life running and hiding! Hiding who I was and who I loved and who I wanted to be because no one in that little town was going to understand it.

“So, yeah, I’ve let boys with hungry mouths take things they shouldn’t have from me, and I’ve drank until I could forget the  _ awfulness _ of this world and the mistakes I’ve made, and I’ve spent so much time just trying to keep it together, and  _ I have failed _ ! I couldn’t keep my family together, and I couldn’t keep my sister alive, and I can’t keep all of you together sometimes, especially when you’re so hell bent on self-destruction!

“Everything hurts and everything’s a battle, and most days I just want to  _ scream _ . I hate my body and my life and this world and all that it contains, and I want to just give up and lie down and scream. And I want to hurt people! I want to hurt some of these people that cause all this damage so much sometimes that I scare myself. I’m scared  _ all the time _ , Emily. 

“I’m scared and I’m  _ angry _ all the fucking time. God, no one knows better than me that this world is not an inherently fair place. I see all of these cases that we have to turn down because they’re not bad  _ enough yet _ , and I am so tired of how the world treats little girls and anyone with a kind heart. Some days, I sit in my office and I can’t read any of the words on the paper in front of me and I can’t even breathe because I’m so  _ mad _ ! 

“So, I’m not trying to be your heaven. I’m not trying to be your savior, because I am just as lost and fucked up as you are, okay?” 

Emily sat there, dumbstruck as JJ tried to catch her breath after speaking so passionately for so long. The blonde’s face was flushed, her eyes were dark and shiny with unshed tears, and Emily was surprised to discover that she was tearing up a bit as well. Emily couldn’t even remember the last time she had cried. 

“I just…” Emily began, her voice barely above a whisper.

“You what?” JJ demanded, tears beginning to fall freely down her face. “You think I don’t  _ know _ that we both have pasts? That, like anyone who makes it this far, we have  _ damage _ ? But god forbid I dare have  _ any _ hope that I might get one good thing.” JJ stepped closer to Emily, reaching out incredibly slowly to caress the raven-haired woman’s cheek, trying to give her ample time to turn her head away. “Because you  _ are _ , Emily. You are a good thing for me.” Emily leaned her head against JJ’s palm, the first couple tears starting to spill out of her eyes as she stepped in even closer to wrap her arms around the younger woman’s waist. 

“I love you,” Emily admitted, in a quiet, shaky voice, “and that scares me because I think you’re far closer to heaven than I’ll ever deserve.” She rubbed her thumbs gently up and down the small of JJ’s back. 

“Even if I’m a little piece of hell and a barely-contained thunderstorm of a human being?” JJ sniffed, but her words took on a more joking tone.

“Especially then,” Emily confirmed, lifting one hand to gently wipe a few tears off JJ’s flushed cheeks. “Because I don’t know if you caught this, but I’m a little bit of a natural disaster myself.” JJ granted Emily a small smile, looking up at her through damp eyelashes.

“Well, God help anyone who gets in our way then,” JJ whispered, leaning in to press her chapped lips against Emily’s deep red ones, tasting tears as Emily brushed her tongue lovingly against JJ’s. 

Their bodies pressed together, pulses still racing, the wreckage of the world and the lives they had left behind mattered a little bit less. This was salvation. 

  
  



End file.
